


Too Quiet

by smokingbomber



Category: Excalibur (Comic)
Genre: Editorial Fiat Sux, F/M, Gen, Kitty is sort of in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:39:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4820855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokingbomber/pseuds/smokingbomber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yet another examination of that awful issue. I think it was #117? Whatever it's been like over 15 years. THE BREAKUP. FEELS. HAVE SOME. This was a tumblr prompt and it's for Catastrophe Jones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Quiet

The wind was high outside, blustering just shy of gale force, and while he shoved his things in the rucksack he usually used as a go-bag, he thought of the first moment that everything clicked into place.

It wasn’t much he was packing; he’d never been attached to much. A photograph, the least destroyed suit he had, the book he’d set down weeks ago, before he ran off into the frigid east from the frigid west.

It wasn’t while they were being shot at, it was when she looked at his face, reached to touch it like he was porcelain, glued back together on a humid day. It was the look on her own face, not even hidden by that stupid mask, framed by her disorderly hair. He knew he was in over his head, at once familiar and brand new.

He thought he saw snow drifting around outside, above the grey water and below the grey sky. It was a month past his birthday, and snow still insisted on falling like salt spilt from the sky, directly onto an open wound. His sister would laugh at the significance, but there’d be no humor in it.

She watched him from the post she’d taken by the door, silent with some foreign emotion he couldn’t bring himself to see as he left more than he took. He left everything with color, he left everything with life. Someone was banging around downstairs, and he was tempted to light a cigarette, just to spite everyone—

—but there wasn’t any spite. There wasn’t even sadness, there wasn’t anger or bitterness. They might come later. Right now there was only a numb bleakness, like the weather on the godforsaken rock he’d lived on for the past year, and automatic motion, like the golden boy on with the lights out.

He thought about the last moment everything was right, everything was in place and perfect, shining. She’d come back. He’d been out of his mind with worry, he’d heard every tick of every clock; he’d imagined he even heard the digital ones. It was a family he had here, but she was its heart, and his had raced along with his thoughts. But she’d come back and she’d held him tightly enough to break his fragile ribs, and he’d held on for his life, and he finally told her what everyone was waiting for him to say.

That was months ago.

Everything about him burned, and she knew it. He imagined her like ice, now, because he couldn’t feel his own fire, and he couldn’t imagine anything but that her fingers were frozen in place on her arms, held close to her chest. Ice so cold it spread, riming everything with frost, covering her, covering him, covering this room and this island and the water and sky surrounding it.

Everyone stayed away, and for that he was grateful. He couldn’t face any of them. He’d miss them all, despite himself, once enough time passed for the numbness to wear off and the warmth of endless glass bottles to take its place, burning him from the top down until his own fire could reignite.

Finally he pulled on his jacket and turned, looking at her. He picked up his bag. She wouldn’t look at him.

The wind outside was rushing in his ears, even though it was dead silent again, no evidence of anyone else ever having existed outside this moment. She wouldn’t look at him.

He walked to the door, past her; he paused on the threshold.

“You said you loved me, once,” he said in a voice so quiet, so brittle, so empty.

A heartbeat. Two.

She was a pillar of ice, and maybe she was afraid she’d be a pillar of salt.

If she said anything after he disappeared into the hall, it was too quietly to stop time.


End file.
